Twenty five percent of businesses have been hit by IT and
telecoms outages in the past 12 months, research by the Chartered
Management Institute (CMI) has revealed.
Yet fewer than 50% of companies and just over 33% of small
organisations have business continuity plans, according to a survey
of 500 CMI members.
The research showed that the loss of telecoms links and IT capacity
head the list of concerns for businesses but fewer than 60%
rehearse business continuity plans at least once a year - the
minimum recommended by the Business Continuity Institute.
About 83% of managers said rehearsals had revealed shortcomings
which led to improvements in planning. But only 11% of firms
involved board-level directors in rehearsals; 34% focused solely on
recovering IT systems.
About 33% benchmark recovery plans against good industry practice,
the study found, but only 14% require outsourcing suppliers to have
a recovery plan: of those that do, only 39% inspect them, and 55%
accept a signed statement from the suppliers. About 26% of firms
work with suppliers on continuity plans.
CMI recommended that firms review the effectiveness of plans
through regular rehearsals and evaluation against standards.